The whole gift-giving culture in Japan is rather ridiculous—if I do say so myself. If you travel somewhere, you must buy presents for everyone in your office. If you receive a present from someone, you must give them a present back. If you have just arrived from a foreign country (or if you are starting a new job) and are going to be working at a new office, you must bring something for everyone. Et cetera, et cetera. Now, sometimes it is pretty cool to receive a gift from someone who has traveled somewhere. It makes you think, “Aw. They were thinking of me on their trip! How thoughtful.” But also, when you are the one on the trip and you have to search through countless boxes of different kinds of souvenirs to find one that has the correct amount for your office, it is tiring and annoying. Especially when you have to find room for them in your bag and lug them all home and then to the office when you only have a bike for transportation!
At the beginning of my adventure here in Japan, I traveled a lot because everyone wanted to do everything before school really got going and we became deeply enveloped in our teaching roles. Therefor, I was pretty much every weekend going somewhere where I needed to purchase omiyage for my coworkers. I eventually just picked a packaged box of cookies, or something of the sort, that contained just enough for everyone in the office. It usually ended up being around 500 yen (about five dollars). Not too bad, considering some people had to purchase multiple boxes to cover all of the people in their office. Although after a while, it made me feel bad because every week, I would be giving my coworkers an omiyage and I felt that I was kind of showing off that I had been able to travel that weekend and they hadn’t. But eventually, my traveling slowed down and I actually received some omiyage of my own! Although sometimes, I know I missed out on some because of my milk allergy—others would receive omiyage and I would not because the product contained milk of some sort. And, actually, that made me feel even better because my coworkers were thoughtful enough to not give me something I couldn’t eat! The one thing that I have recently received the most of is a type of sweet that has anko filling on the inside (a sweet red bean paste) and the outside is a rice cake (kind of a sticky glutinous substance). It is a traditional Japanese sweet and I love it because it is one of the few sweet things I can eat here! When I do receive omiyage that I cannot eat, I am lucky enough to have a neighbor that will eat them for me. Not a bad trade-off for either of us. I don’t feel bad because if he didn’t take them, I would have to throw them away. And he likes it because he receives yummy food from around Japan. On a side note, the English teacher who has a second desk next to mine (his main one is down in the big teacher’s room) has at least ten different omiyage treats that he never touches and I wonder how long some of them have been there. It makes my inner clean freak cringe each time I see them.
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Myself
Video blogger and now a blogger as well. My life in Japan has changed me for the better. However, it wasn't easy... Archives
September 2016
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